According to a new Harris Interactive study, more people say the Web will be their primary news source than network news or cable news. While today 25% of respondents in the U.S. say they rely on network TV news, the Web comes in at number 2 with 18%. But when asked what source they will turn to in the future, those numbers flip and the Web moves ahead of network TV news by 4%. [Lost Remote]
Category Archives: Media & Culture
Missed opportunity
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Please tell me I’m not the first person to see this mural (radio station in Chillicothe, Missouri) and not want to go inside, sneak upstairs, remove my shirt and lean out the window (closest to the street) and scream “Help! Help!”
Podcast Audience Continues To Grow
The Diffusion Group reports that, based on their latest research, 11% of adult broadband users (some 12 million US consumers) listen to podcasts at least once per month. They also predict that the podcast audience will more than double in the next five years, to 24% of broadband users (38.5 million Americans) by 2012. [Podcasting News]
How important is local news on the radio?
Mark Ramsey says (Hear 2.0) his research repeatedly shows that once you get beyond traffic and local sports headlines and weather, "local news" per se is one of the things (radio) listeners – even information listeners – want least.
And that’s fundamentally because information fans tend to be interested in one of two things: What fascinates or entertains them and what impacts them personally. And neither of these things are explicitly "local."
Is this true? Hmm. I’ve lived in Jefferson City for more than 20 years and I don’t know the name of the mayor and have very little interest in what’s going on "locally." Until, of course, something doesn’t work.
I listen to our state news reports on our local affiliate but can’t remember the last time I listened to the "local" newscast. But I’ve always suspected –and hoped– I was the exception.
eBay to auction radio advertising
eBay is ready to begin auctioning advertising airtime on 2,300 participating U.S. radio stations. The venture –which puts eBay into competition with Google– includes both conventional terrestrial radio and Internet radio advertising. Stations in all of the 300 top-ranked radio markets are covered. Advertising inventory includes primetime spots with 90 percent in morning drive, midday or evening commute hours from Monday through Friday.
How (if at all) will this impact companies like ours that barter our services for radio station commercials? When you finish the quiz, close your Blue Book and raise your hand.
Internet’s ad share surpasses radio for the first time
Internet’s ad share surpasses radio for the first time. Radio’s share of advertising revenues held flat in the first quarter — taking 6.6% of spending. But for the first time the Internet has a bigger share. It took 7.7%. TNS Media says radio is now fifth — behind TV, magazines, newspapers and the Web. [Inside Radio]
Interview with Dave Shepherd
Fifty years ago, Jerrell Shepherd mastered a form of broadcasting alchemy that turned small town radio lead into gold. It wasn’t much of a secret, however, since he readily shared it with countless radio station owners and managers who made the pilgrimage to Moberly, Missouri, in hopes of bringing some of Shepherd’s sales and programming magic back to their stations.
While most small market broadcasters were content to get “their fair share” of local advertising budgets (the bulk went to the local newspaper), Shepherd’s sales reps were trained to ask for it all and believed in their hearts they deserved it.
Mr. Shepherd’s approach to programming his stations was deceptively simple: report anything and everything that happened in each of the communities covered by his stations’ signals. The KWIX and KRES “Red Rovers” showed up just about every high school football game, junior high choral concert and chamber of commerce ribbon-cutting. And the Shepherd stations put it all on the air. Always with local sponsors. Lots of local sponsors.
Dave Shepherd grew up in the radio business and built on his father’s success, growing The Shepherd Group to 16 stations before selling them to a Florida-based company called GoodRadio.TV, for $30 million earlier this year.
I got Dave on the phone for a little chat and he talked about where small market radio has been… and where it’s going. He shared some thoughts on the Internet, iPods, HD, satellite and Google Radio.
He says he decided to sell because it just wasn’t as much fun as it used to be. And, in the next breath, he wondered if some of his father’s small town magic might work in The Big City.
AUDIO: Interview with Dave Shepherd 25 min MP3
Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band
“For many fans, hearing Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band for the first time was a life-changing experience. Prior to its release in June of 1967, most of music being produced was for Top 40, AM radio play and for dance parties. Kids bought 45s and never thought of a collection of songs as a “concept album” or work of art. Sgt. Pepper’s was unlike anything anyone had heard before.”
You had to be there to appreciate “Sgt. Pepper’s” but this piece on today’s All Things Considered takes a good stab at explaining why it was a big deal. I was just finishing my first year of college when the album was released. Perfect timing.
Google Audio: About Your Ad form
In another lifetime I wrote radio “spots.” A lot of ’em. So please feel free to skip this “shop talk” post.
TechCrunch is getting reports from advertisers that Google Audio Ads have been added as an option to their Adwords accounts. Interesting to see the data collected with the “About Your Ad” form (Goal of ad; target customer; key messages; call to action; etc.).
And this from the comments on the post: “I’ve been using Audio Ads for months now. I like how you can listen to the actual snippet of your ad being played on the station. I don’t like how you can’t choose a specific radio station, only the type of format and DMA.”
Wonder how they’re getting the mini-air check? I can see how advertisers would love that.
Bonus link: “Analysts Peek Into Google’s Pitch to Radio” (Radio World)
Time to send in the Branch Dividians
Last week I stumbled across an interesting (and lengthy) 2006 Rolling Stone article by Janet Reitman (“Inside Scientology”) that takes a peek behind the curtain of “America’s most mysterious religion.”
I’m not sure how someone could read this and not be convinced L. Ron Hubbard (the guy that came up with Scientology) was a wacko con man. Try to imagine convincing a new convert of the following:
“…75 million years ago, an evil galactic warlord named Xenu controlled seventy-six planets in this corner of the galaxy, each of which was severely overpopulated. To solve this problem, Xenu rounded up 13.5 trillion beings and then flew them to Earth, where they were dumped into volcanoes around the globe and vaporized with bombs. This scattered their radioactive souls, or thetans, until they were caught in electronic traps set up around the atmosphere and “implanted” with a number of false ideas — including the concepts of God, Christ and organized religion. Scientologists later learn that many of these entities attached themselves to human beings, where they remain to this day, creating not just the root of all of our emotional and physical problems but the root of all problems of the modern world.”
Let me say once again, this sounds like a load of horse shit. But why am I more skeptical of these “teachings” than the miracles of the Christian faith? The Bible is the literal Word of God and Dianetics is science fiction? That works for a lot of people.
Not sure where this post came from, maybe all the killing and dying in the name of religion.
Speaking of Holy Wars, maybe we should send the members of our most fanatical faiths (Scientologists, The Jonestown Brigade, The 101st Branch Davidians, etc) to mix it up with the extremists of other religions. If the other team is playing 12 year old suicide bombers… we send in some grandmothers willing to drink poison Cool-Aide. Let’s out-crazy them.